Rex Stout_Tecumseh Fox 02 (25 page)

“I won’t keep you much longer,” Fox assured her, “and I have no more questions to ask. I just want to tell you that I like the second explanation best because it fits so well into the only satisfactory theory of the murder of Arthur Tingley. If you had gone home at 6:15, as you said, you couldn’t very well have been here to knock Miss Duncan on the head when she arrived at ten minutes past seven. Of course you could have gone and returned here, that’s possible though unlikely, and it wouldn’t change things any.”

Miss Yates said nothing, but she smiled. It was the first time Fox had seen her smile. He shot a glance at Damon, Damon made a quick gesture to the man who
stood by the safe, and the man moved to within an arm’s length of Miss Yates’s chair.

“The theory starts back a few weeks,” Fox resumed. “As you remarked to me on Wednesday, this business and this place were everything to you; you had no life except here. When P. and B. made an offer to buy the business you became alarmed, and upon reflection you were convinced that sooner or later Tingley would sell. This old place would of course be abandoned. That was intolerable to you. You considered ways of preventing it, and what you hit on was adulterating the product, damaging its reputation sufficiently so that P. and B. wouldn’t want it. You chose what seemed to you the lesser of two evils. Doubtless you thought that the reputation could be gradually reestablished.”

Sol Fry, who, like the others, had been dividing his attention, deliberately turned half around in his chair and stared at Miss Yates incredulously. She was unaware of it, for she wasn’t looking at him.

“It seemed probable,” Fox conceded, “that it would work. The only trouble was, you were overconfident. You were in your own mind so completely identified with the success and very existence of this place and what went on here, that you never dreamed that Tingley would arrange with your subordinates to check on you secretly. Tuesday afternoon you learned about it when Fry caught Miss Murphy in the act. And you had no time to consider the situation, to do anything about it, for almost immediately afterward—at a quarter to six, just after he phoned his niece to come and help him with his adopted son—Tingley called you into his office and accused you.”

“You were behind the desk and heard him,” said Miss Yates sarcastically.

“No, I wasn’t. But I’ll finish with the theory. Tingley not only accused you, he told you that he had proof. He had got from Carrie Murphy a jar containing a sample of one of your mixes, and it had quinine in it. Knowing his temper, I suspect that he not only fired you but announced that he was going to prosecute, but that isn’t essential to the theory, for I know he told you he was going to sell the business. At least he phoned to Leonard Cliff, undoubtedly in your presence, and made an appointment to see him the next morning, and there could have been only one reason for that. I suppose you implored him, pleaded with him, and were still pleading with him, from behind, while he was stooping over the basin behind the screen to wash his hands. He didn’t know you had got the two-pound weight from his desk, and never did know it. It knocked him out. You went and got a knife and finished the job, there where he lay on the floor, and you were searching the room, looking for the sample jar which he had got from Carrie Murphy, when you heard footsteps.”

Only the man standing near Miss Yates’s chair could see the rhythmic contortions of her fingers in her lap.

“Naturally that alarmed you,” Fox continued. “But the steps were of only one person, and that a woman. So you stood behind the screen with the weight in your hand, hoping that whoever it was she would come straight to that room and enter it, and she did. She even obligingly stopped, became motionless, just at the spot where you could hit her without first taking a step. You dragged her behind the screen, as a precaution in the event of the arrival of another unexpected caller, and you got an idea upon which you immediately acted by pressing her fingers
around the knife handle, from which of course your own prints had been wiped—”

A stifled gasp interrupted him—from Amy Duncan, who was staring at Miss Yates in horrified disbelief.

Fox answered it without moving his eyes from Miss Yates. “I doubt if you intended to incriminate Miss Duncan. You probably calculated—and for an impromptu and rapid calcuation it was a good one—that when it was found that the weight had been wiped and the knife handle had not, the inference would be, not that Miss Duncan had killed Tingley, but that the murderer had clumsily tried to pin it on her. That tended to divert suspicion from you, for it was known that you had been on friendly terms with her and bore her no grudge. It was a very pretty calculation for a hasty one. Hasty, because now you were in a hurry, and you hadn’t found the jar. You were so hasty that when Tingley’s coat slipped off its hanger while you were searching the pockets you left it lying on the floor. I suppose you had previously found that the safe door was open and had looked in there, but now you tried it again. No jar was visible, but a locked metal box was there on a shelf, and you picked it up and shook it.”

Damon muttered involuntarily, “I’ll be damned.”

“You shook it,” Fox repeated, “and it sounded as if the jar was in it. Not exactly, perhaps, but near enough to you as you were then. You were getting panicky. Amy’s arrival had unnerved you. If she could appear unexpectedly, anyone could, a regiment could. The box was locked. To go to the factory again and get something to pry it open with—no. Enough. Besides, the jar was in no other likely place, so that must be it. Your nerves couldn’t take any more. You took the box
and went, leaving by the stairs in the rear and the delivery entrance. You may even have been startled into a precipitate exit by the sound of more footsteps on those old stairs, for Guthrie Judd arrived only ten minutes after Miss Duncan did. You hurried home through the rain, for it was certainly raining then, and had just got your umbrella stood in the tub to drain and your things off when Carrie Murphy arrived.”

“But she—she—” Carrie stammered.

“I know, Miss Murphy. She was dry and composed and herself. An exceptionally cool and competent head has for thirty years been content to busy itself with titbits.” Fox’s gaze was still at Miss Yates. “While you were talking with Miss Murphy you had an idea. You would lead the conversation to a point where a phone call to Tingley would be appropriate, and you did so; and you called his house first and then his office, and faked a conversation with him. The idea itself was fairly clever, but your follow-up was brilliant. You didn’t mention it to the police, and advised Miss Murphy not to, realizing it would backfire if someone entered this office between the time you left and eight o’clock. If it turned out that someone had, and Miss Murphy blabbed about the phone call, you could say that you had pretended to make it for the effect on her, and adduce the fact that you hadn’t tried to fool the police about it; if it turned out that someone hadn’t, the phone call would stick, with Miss Murphy to corroborate it.”

A low growl came from Damon.

“Excuse me,” Fox said. “But you couldn’t open the box while Miss Murphy was there, and before she left your friend Miss Harley arrived to play cribbage. You could of course have said you had a headache and sent Miss Harley away, but, not knowing when Miss
Duncan would regain consciousness, or even, as a matter of fact, whether she ever would, you wanted an alibi to as late an hour as possible. So you swallowed your anxiety and played cribbage for two and a half hours. As soon as Miss Harley had gone you forced the lid open with something, say a heavy screwdriver—and I can imagine your disappointment and dismay when you saw no jar. Only a pair of child’s shoes and an envelope!

“I doubt if you returned here that night. You may have, for you certainly wanted that jar, but I doubt if you had the guts. If you did, naturally you moved with caution, and you either didn’t enter this room because you heard me in here, or you did enter it, failed to find the jar, and fled again when you heard the police arriving shortly after midnight. Or perhaps it took you a while to screw your courage up to it, and when you finally did come the police were already here. I know you were at home at ten minutes to twelve, for at that time I phoned to you at your apartment. Those are speculations; in any event, you didn’t get the jar.”

Fox paused for breath; and Miss Yates snapped at Inspector Damon, “Is this going on all day?”

Damon neither spoke nor moved. Fox continued:

“I’m about done. But you deserve to hear this: your mailing that box to the inspector this morning was extremely stupid. I realize that you didn’t want it in your flat, and that your suspense about the jar must have been terrific, since you knew Miss Murphy had told me about the samples secretly delivered to Tingley. But why didn’t you fill the box with stones and throw it in the river? Or if stones are scarce at your place, anything with enough weight? I suppose you put on a pair of gloves, examined the contents of
the envelope, and figured that if the police got hold of it their attention would be directed to Guthrie Judd and Philip. So you wiped the box clean of prints and wrapped it and mailed it. I hope you see now how dumb that was. Instead of directing suspicion against Philip or Judd, the result was just the opposite, for it was obvious that neither of them would have mailed the box to the police, and therefore some third person had somehow got possession of the box, and the who and how became immediately the most important questions to get answered.”

If anyone looked away from Miss Yates at that moment for a glance at Fox, they saw a glint of something resembling admiration in his eyes. “I can see,” he said, “that though your brain may have gone fuzzy on you when you decided to mail that box, it is clear and cool now. You know where you stand, don’t you? You realize that I can prove little or nothing of what I’ve said. I can’t prove what Tingley said to you Tuesday evening, or what time you left here, or that you got the box from the safe and took it with you, or that it was you who mailed it to the police. I can’t even prove that there wasn’t someone here at eight o’clock who imitated Tingley’s voice and deceived you into thinking that he was talking to you on the phone. I can’t actually prove a darned thing. That’s what’s in your head, and you’re right. So I’ll have to take back what I said a little while ago, that I had no more questions to ask. I’d like to put one or two to Miss Murphy.” Fox turned to reach a hand into the leather bag, and when he withdrew it there was something in it. He stepped forward, circling around Philip’s chair, and was standing in front of Carrie Murphy. He held the object in front of her eyes.

“Please look at this carefully, Miss Murphy. As
you see, it is a small jar half full of something. Pasted on it is a small plain white label bearing the notation in pencil, ‘eleven dash fourteen dash Y.’ Does that mean anything to you? Look at it—”

But Carrie had no chance to give it a thorough inspection, let alone voice her fatal response. The figure of Miss Yates, from eight feet away, came hurtling through the air. She uttered no frenzied cry, uttered no sound at all, but flung herself with such unexpected speed and force that the fingers of her outstretched hand, missing what they were after, nearly poked Fox’s eye out. He grabbed for the wrist and got it, and then the man who had been on the other side of her chair was there and had her. He seized her from behind by her upper arms, with a grip that must have made her flesh wince, but apparently she didn’t feel it. She stood, with no protest or attempt to struggle, looked at Tecumseh Fox, who had backed away, and asked him what Fox afterwards said was the most startling question—under the circumstances—that had ever been addressed to him:

“Where was it?”

He told her.

Half an hour later, down on the street, Fox had his foot on the running board of his car ready to climb in when he felt a touch at his elbow, turned, and saw it was Leonard Cliff.

“Beg pardon,” Cliff said. His eyes had that peculiar fixed vacancy which eyes have when the object they are focused on is not the one they are seeing. Amy Duncan’s eyes, from where she sat at the other end of the driver’s seat, were more honestly directed. She was looking at Cliff.

It appeared that Cliff didn’t intend to go on until pardon had been granted, so Fox asked politely, “Want something? Can we give you a lift? We’re going down to Grove Street—”

“I’ll take a taxi, thank you,” Cliff said stiffly. “I wanted to ask if you wouldn’t come to my office some day next week and meet the president of the company. I was very much impressed by the way you handled that up there. We are one of the largest corporations in the country, and we could make a very tempting offer—”

“You’re a liar,” Fox said bluntly. “I mean that isn’t what you touched my elbow for, at this particular moment. Your corporation doesn’t need me that bad. You simply couldn’t resist the desire to get close to Miss Duncan.”

“Really,” said Cliff. “Really—”

“Yep, really. By the way, I’ve just told her why you were tailing her Tuesday evening, and she didn’t laugh. Far from it.”

“Well, that—that is no longer of any …” It ran off into nothing, because his eyes had had their way and were meeting Amy’s.

“Hop in,” Fox invited him. “We’re going to stop in at Grove Street for Miss Duncan’s umbrella. She’s going to give it to me to add to my collection of souvenirs. Go around to the other side and squeeze in with us. Then we’re going to Rusterman’s for lunch.”

“I—I’ll get in the back.”

“There’s plenty of room,” said Amy, who up to that point had taken no part in the conversation.

Cliff hesitated, looked like a man who feared he was looking like a fool, and then moved. He went around the front of the car and was at the other door, which Amy had swung open. She moved over against
Fox, but even so it was fairly close quarters. When Cliff got the door closed he was touching her all along the frontier. There was no help for it.

The car rolled east. As it turned into Eighth Avenue Cliff said, “Of course you didn’t invite me for lunch, but it would be very—I mean if you would both accept an invitation from me—at Rusterman’s if you like it there—”